College ofCounselling & Psychotherapy

Is Counselling Training for You?

Your student experience

The three pillars of the course are theory, counselling skills and personal development. You will learn about integrative counselling and by the end of the three years will have developed a coherent philosophy of integration. At Matrix we consider an understanding of your own personal history is crucial to the development of your integrative framework which is why we place such emphasis on personal counselling.

Counselling skills are taught in triad groups over almost all training weekends. At the beginning of Year 2, once you have been assessed as ready to practice you will begin to work in a placement. We have many links with voluntary agencies in both East Anglia and beyond, and our students are highly valued as voluntary counsellors.

We have a designated Learning Support tutor who is available for one to one support for those who need it. We also recognise that many of our students are returning to study after a long absence and we have developed strategies to enable our students to develop academic skills swiftly.

All our students are adult learners and much of the work is undertaken at home. We encourage the development of study skills groups to help our students study in between training weekends.

As a small college, we do not have a Student’s Union. We take feedback from our students after every training weekend and more formally at a Board of Studies meeting twice a year. Each training group appoints two student reps who represent the students views on the Board of Studies. We value student’s feedback enormously and have made many changes over the years in response to it.

Employability

A BSc is a recognised qualification. In addition to the academic qualification a benefit of studying this course is that it leads to UKCP registration as a Psychotherapeutic Counsellor (once a total of 450 clinical hours have been completed). This registration is a benchmark standard for counsellors in the UK.

Our course is designed to create competent Integrative Counsellors who are ready to work in the counselling field and develop a career in counselling. Working as a counsellor in charitable organizations, GP surgeries, student support in universities and private practice are all examples of possible employment.

If you would like to continue your academic learning following the course you can progress onto a postgraduate qualification such as a Master’s degree in Psychotherapy.

"I learned so much from the other students on the course and group dynamics. The essays and case studies – although they were hard work at the time – were instrumental in helping me integrate theory and practice and reflect deeply on my client work."